Using photo apps on your iPhone and iPad.

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Transferring photos is one of those things that is always needed. I was hoping Apple would let us easily get our shots from place to place via the iCloud, but they won’t let you get full resolution images between iOS devices. Thus, I always end up needing to use an app to transfer images.

A new app called transfr was released last month. It is a Universal app so you can run it on your iOS devices, and it also has a free program for your computer. You can send or receive from all these devices by running the app on each device, and you can transfer via bluetooth or wifi.

This video shows me using the app on my iPad and desktop to transfer photos back and forth.

This is a really great version 1.0. The interface is minimalistic on the desktop app, and is primarily just an icon in your menu bar. It’s designed for just sending and receiving, nothing more complex than that. The iOS apps have a very clean interface. Transferring was smooth, and I didn’t encounter any errors.

The closest competitor to this is Photo Transfer App (PTA), which is the one I’ve always used in the past. The GUI of PTA on iOS is a bit ‘noisy’, and the desktop portion of PTA has many more features – and is more of a full organizational program. As features increase it is often difficult to keep a streamlined interface. Fact of life.

Both of these transfer apps do a great job getting your photos from point A to point B, so choosing between them might come down to your preference for interface.

In the future I’m hoping the tranfr program for your Mac will make it to the Mac App Store (currently you download from the transfr home page). I’m also torn between wanting more in the desktop app. Having a simple ‘drop zone’ window to send photos would be nice. Right now you can only select photos, there is no drag/drop way to send photos to your iOS device from your desktop.

An app that I use almost daily for my ‘shot of the day’ on my iPhone is lo-mob.

Have you ever experiment with your old analog cameras? Have you put a 35mm film in a medium format body? Have you ever tried to achieve Through The Viewfinder (TTV) photography by shooting a picture with a camera through the viewfinder of another?

Take a picture or choose one from your library, Lo-Mob will process it, and give you a preview of all its 39 filters, at once.

You’ll be able to tweak the filter you chose, altering the frame, the vignetting, the color filter or the blurring.

Apple tends to have some of the best commercials out there. This one makes you feel good and simply states that the iPhone takes more pictures than anything else every day.

The iPhone really does seem to dominate in terms of sheer numbers of photos that get uploaded to the web. Currently the top 3 cameras on Flickr are all iPhones. Looks like the iPhone 5 is about to overtake the iPhone 4S. I’m sure the next iPhone is just around the corner, and the latest rumor is a 12 megapixel camera. Of course, megapixels is not always the most important thing, but it always sounds good in print.

This week is flying by. I keep wanting to do a post about this, that, or the other thing, but the real world seems to keep me far too busy. If anyone ever wants to do one (or more) guest posts, feel free to drop me a line. No need to be a professional…just someone that feels like posting about most anything. I pay a total sum of $0. 🙂

Anyway, here are a few updates from the past week that are worth noticing.

FX Photo Studio for the iPhone is free for about the next 12 hours or so. A nice photo effects app that is usually $2. It was also updated earlier today with lots of enhancements – including full resolution on iPhone 5. My iPhone 5 is purring like a kitten.

Percolator, a very unique Universal app, is on sale for $2. It’s usually $3. Several new features were added in the recent update. I really like the new Tripstamatic and Charmed settings. I wish Charmed could be even wobblier!

Brewed in Percolator using the new tripstamatic circles.

Popsicolor is another unique (and Universal) app that lets you create a variety of ink/watercolor effects. Several new settings have been added to this release that allow you to get a bit more artistic with the drips and intensity of the image. It’s Thursday and the entire week has been odd, but I noticed the entire description of the app in iTunes is currently in Chinese! Guess a switch got flipped somewhere. In any event, you may not be able to read the description, but it’s a great app. I’m no Picasso, but I created this flower. Perhaps I should have added some hands – then it would probably be worth more!

For those that are looking for camera replacement apps, Camera Boost has continued to improve with each update. I first tested this app right after it became Universal at the start of the year. I noticed a few bugs and it didn’t always seem quick and responsive on my iPhone. I gave the app another try with the most recent update and it has vastly improved. No sluggishness at all, no crashes. It’s snappy 🙂

The live previews you get for whatever adjustments you’ve made (or use of presets) is very nice for when you are taking pictures/video, and the large number of options you have for custom settings is expansive.

Here are a few samples of pictures I’ve taken with a variety of settings ranging from ‘just green’ to ‘sepia.’

Picture taken with Camera Boost

Picture taken with Camera Boost

Picture taken with Camera Boost

Picture taken with Camera Boost

This app has really become a great camera replacement app, and the developer is now working on the next big update to version 5. Looking forward to it.

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Hello. This blog started in April 2011 and continues to grow.

If you are interested in photography with your iPhone and iPad be sure to drop by every now and then. I'll try to let you know about any photo apps that I happen to be using that day, or things that I notice about iPhoneography.